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Ville Platte Patrolman First Class Charles Fontenot (left) and Ville Platte Detective Patrick Hall (right) stand next to the American flag inside Ville Platte City Court. Both Fontenot and Hall served in military. (Gazette photo by Raymond Partsch III)

A true calling

Army veteran, reservist take pride in serving and protecting as Ville Platte cops

By: RAYMOND PARTSCH III
Managing Editor

There isn’t much difference when it comes to serving one’s country, and serving one’s community.
The men and women in the United State Armed Forces put their lives on the line every day to protect the country in time of war and peace. The men and women that protect and serve the community as local law enforcement officers do the same, the only difference are the locales.
For Ville Platte Police Department Detective, and U.S. Army Reservist Patrick Hall, both professions are nothing less than a true calling.
“Being in law enforcement and being in the military go hand in hand because both are a calling,” Hall said. “Everybody can’t be a cop and everybody can’t be in the military.”
For Ville Platte Patrolman First Class Charles Fontenot, who is an Army veteran, there is bond between a department that reminds him very much of his days in the military.
“I really like the comrade,” Fontenot said. “It reminds of being in a unit. The people we work with watch our backs and they know that we have their back.”
It is common for military veterans to transfer over into law enforcement but Hall and Fontenot took different paths to get there.
For Hall, a Mamou native, he joined the Army as a way to pay for his college education.
“My family didn’t have the revenue or resources to send me to college,” Hall said. “So I looked at the G.I. Bill.”
After a few years of active service in the early 1990’s, Hall went to Grambling State, while also drilling with the ROTC, and earned a history degree. After that Hall was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and went into the Army Reserves, which he has served in for the past few decades and has the rank of Colonel.
“Being in the military I learned not to leave anybody behind,” Hall said. “I learned to always help people.”
Hall began helping his hometown when he joined the Mamou Police Department as a part-time patrolmen, before becoming full-time in 1998 and then eventually moving over to the VPPD in 2011.
Fontenot meanwhile chose the military over college or working a 9-to-5 job.
“I was given an ultimatum,” Fontenot said. “When I turned 18 it was either find a job, go to college or join the service. I actually had gone to the National Guard Youth Program before I joined the Army. I got my GED there and that was a big reason why I chose the Army.”
Fontenot would serve six years in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of specialist and completing two 15-month tours of duty in Iraq. However when the Ville Platte native returned home after being discharged in the fall of 2010, he had trouble adjusting to working civilian life.
In nearly five years, Fontenot held a slew of different jobs, including working as an offshore hand, with a field survey office to selling auto parts. None of the jobs stuck.
“I probably had 10 jobs before this,” Fontenot said. “None of them worked out. They never felt right to me.”
That all changed a few years ago.
“Every now and then I would keep putting in my application and then finally somebody called me,” Fontenot said. “I was excited when it finally happened.”
Both Hall and Fontenot take great pride in their jobs, but that’s not to say that the job doesn’t have its challenges as both have to deal with at times are disturbing and violent situations, much like serving in the military.
“In a moment’s call we could be sitting here and then we have a shooting to go out to,” Hall said. “We may have to deal with a murder or a suspect that starts shooting at us. Or we have to go deal with a rape case. You have to go deal with someone that you know that you want to shoot because he touched a 10-year-old. But you have to have that capacity to be composed in the moment.”
Hall added, “You got to have a strong head to deal with the stuff you see in the military, and the stuff you see in law enforcement you’ve got to have a good head to store it.”
Both Hall and Fontenot have learned how to cope with the stress and the lingering emotional effects of the job.
“I find it gets easier the more you deal with it,” Fontentot said. “Everybody has a different way of dealing with it. For me, I just focus on what is going on at that exact time. Once I am done it becomes a memory in the back of my mind. I won’t talk about it at home. If I need to talk to someone then I will talk to my fellow officers.”
“I have been in shoot outs and all types of crazy stuff and I have learned that I have systematic way of dealing with stuff,” Hall said. “When I leave to go home, and I am not on call, I have to tone it down.”
In recent years, tensions between law enforcement officials and members of the community have risen, sometimes to destructive levels which has made police officers not the most well-liked or appreciated figures in the community.
For Hall and Fontenot though, that hasn’t changed their approach to how each one serves the community.
“It doesn’t matter what you do because some people will hate you just because you are wearing this uniform,” Fontenot said. “Sometimes you can prove them wrong by being nice but sometimes you can’t. At the end of the day I can’t care if they like me or not because I am here to do a job.”
Added Hall, who also leads the DARE program in Ville Platte, “I have a rule that I have followed for a long time. “I take nothing personal and I try to understand where you are coming from. If I was civilian and I got punched in the eye, and then a cop comes up to my house and tries to tell me to be quiet I would be trippin’ and irate too. I try to relate to that and understand that our basic job is just not to arrest everybody. We are called peace officers for a reason. Every day I try to come up with a mechanism to make peace while on calls.”

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